In today’s shaky economy, many employees have the doldrums. After all, they face longer work days and heavier workloads, and they fear losing their jobs over using vacation or sick time. With a stressed work force, morale and productivity may be low. To boost employees’ spirits and get them working at full speed, employers should foster a more humanistic attitude in their companies. This brief article offers three tips to help them get started

Ask employees how supervisors could improve the performance review process and you’ll probably get more responses than you know what to do with. This article addresses six common mistakes managers make and how they can improve.

What makes a leader great? One key skill is the ability to garner the support of others. And good leaders realize they must continually enhance their skills and set an example for the rest. This brief article offers six steps to becoming a better leader.

Seven recommendations for identifying your audiences, discovering the most compelling ways to speak to them, and then using the information you gather to create your book, product, service, Web site, or custom solution.

Aligning consequences with expectations is easier said than done. But by becoming aware of and applying these cause-and-effect principles, you’ll encourage the very best performance from your colleagues and staff.

Many supervisors dread conducting the periodic performance appraisal discussion. That's often because they don't have a framework to make the discussion painless, constructive, and valuable. We see the discussion as a slideshow in which supervisor and employee revisit events and experiences.

From sending crystal-clear, compelling marketing messages, to maintaining our business momentum, to developing a distinct competitive advantage around an appealing cause, nothing speaks as powerfully as doing what we love.

Are you unsure of where to begin identifying your burning hassles? Try asking your staff or colleagues what’s impeding their work. Remember to use these ground rules: No blaming or accusing! Everyone should feel free to speak up without being criticized, and everyone can help brainstorm the solutions.

Broadband services can send multiple channels of data over a single cable or telephone line simultaneously. Our conversations are also broadband transmissions. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we send and receive information along several channels.

This kind of guidance can come in the form of interviews, tightly interwoven tips and hints, overviews, demonstrations, wizards, decision guidance, calculation tools, and other systematic interactions that intelligently aid people in achieving their goals.

By continuously measuring your customer "wow" factors — such as ideal features and functions, ease of use, simplicity and elegance, and error-free operation — your efforts will pay for themselves many times over through customer loyalty, a solid reputation, and increased profitability.

By Jan. 1, 2006, many California companies finished their initial mandatory training for supervisors. Although the law applies specifically to California companies, the details are worth noting regardless of your location. This brief article looks at the new law and why all employers should take notice

Today's leaders face countless challenges, familiar and unfamiliar. But by following just a few clear principles, leaders can stay on course despite the pull in many directions. We look at five such principles: (1) Create an optimistic culture; (2) Promote collaborative relationships; (3) Encourage exceptional performance; (4) Focus for high impact; (5) Cultivate trust.

"What can we learn from our missteps?" and "What can we do differently next time?" are two questions that often come up in project debriefing sessions. But two other key questions -- especially useful in managing your career -- have to do with accomplishments. Ask yourself "What did I do well?" and "How did I do it?"

"Fast forward" is normal speed in business today. As we move through meetings, demos, projects, plans, phone calls, contacts, and videoconferences, it is difficult (if not impossible) to set our days on "Pause." And "Stop!" is our last resort. In this article, you will find strategies -- some new, some tried and true -- for managing time in fast forward.

By packaging the components of your products in complementary formats, you can help your customers consume what you offer in any mode they choose. You’ll also provide more value than your competitors will by giving your audiences more convenient ways to learn or do what they’ve turned to your offerings to receive.

What has changed lately? In business, roughly everything: the economy, technology, travel, tourism, employment rates, energy costs and availability, regulations, the global marketplace, and more. Change is everywhere -- some of it anticipated, some without notice. In this article, you will find four key questions. Answering these questions will help you prepare yourself and your organization for the inevitable changes ahead.

Baby boomers are quickly approaching retirement age, which may drastically affect many organizations’ workforces. This article explains how preparedness and willingness to step outside the business-as-usual model can help companies make this demographic reality work for them, rather than against them.

Remember that quality in perception is not a substitute for quality in fact. But it can go a long way toward minimizing customer and client dissatisfaction, as well as powerfully reinforcing stellar quality when you ultimately deliver it.

It's always a good time to set and work toward goals, especially at the beginning of a new year. But every now and then we need to think too about how we set and achieve our goals. Are we doing the right things to achieve meaningful results? Does our approach work for us and for our teams? Consider these questions.

This article explains how developing a set of"business success criteria" can help you select a worthwhile undertaking with much deeper insight, and thus establish conditions for successfully pursuing it.

A leader sets the tone for employee performance throughout the organization. These six specific actions -- which involve vision, values, stories, branding, and other elements -- can lead your staff to higher performance through a work culture that inspires.

The Gallup Organization reports that only 16% of employees feel actively engaged at work. Organizations that want to develop that sense of engagement ensure that their managers and supervisors know how to delegate smartly.

We often talk about the need to think outside the box. Yet typically it's our thinking methods which create that legendary box. We box ourselves in by the way we approach an issue, problem, or opportunity. Here are some useful springboards for thinking to break the box, which involve asking different kinds of questions.

Would you like quick, practical tips and bits of wisdom on five important topics? Here is some of our latest thinking on communicating, delegating, managing one's career, transforming team conflict, and working with communication styles, taken from five new NetSpeed Leadership modules.

Revealing and remedying annoying hassles can stem the exodus of cranky customers and help you begin building a base of “raving fans.” Your customers deserve no less than the very best of experiences with every facet of your offerings.

It's easy to sink under team conflict, especially when it gets "resolved" negatively. But it's possible to thrive and succeed when we constructively transform team conflict. Transformation begins with acknowledging the value of conflict, increasing conflict competence, and giving conflict situations a neutral name.

There are plenty of reasons to be a good boss. Perhaps, most important, employees with good bosses perform well and are fully engaged in their work — which creates results that support your business. But also keep in mind that, when people jump ship, they generally leave because of their boss, not their job. Researchers have even linked a poor relationship with a supervisor to depression and other mental health problems. This article offers some of the secrets of top leaders’ success.

Vital success measures help reveal why a troubled project has gotten off track and how to reframe its success. By 1) continuing to investigate where the project stands, 2) assessing and re-planning the project as needed, 3) resetting everyone’s expectations, and 4) aiming to deliver, you can resuscitate an ailing project and deliver the desired results.

We are all different. That's a given. The challenge for us in the world of work is to recognize and adapt to style differences. Rather than going through our day thinking that others are "flaky" or "nit-picking," we need to work successfully with them. Here's a tip sheet on how to do it.

Imagine yourself on the pit crew of a high-speed auto racer. You want your vehicle and your team to win. But winning will require -- among other things -- efficient, foolproof, lightening fast communication. How can you communicate at high speeds? Read these 16 tips on writing for high-speed readers.

It’s thoughtful and appropriate to send messages of comfort and condolences to anyone you know—not just friends and family but employees, clients, customers, vendors, and others. Everyone will appreciate your caring message in his/her time of discomfort and loss, and you will feel good about having connected with them.